by Robert Reed
The girl never named her sources.
As a precaution, she implied that she was an orphan, her parents unrelated by flesh; and playing along with her game, Jey-im listened intently to her descriptions, a studious excitement crossing his handsome face.
Midway through the night, they sneaked into the Master’s School—a complex of elderly buildings and modern laboratories set in the City’s oldest district. The visit was Jey-im’s idea. His mother and her subclan had strong ties to the institution; perhaps eventually, he hinted, he would serve that hallowed place.
In the middle of their visit, Jey-im vanished.
Then just as suddenly, he reappeared, telling Po-lee-een that nothing was wrong—even though she hadn’t made any worried sounds.
Later, she was invited to Jey-im’s house for a midnight meal. It was obviously his mother’s idea, and the large, overly animated woman filled every silence by talking relentlessly about nothing. Occasionally a sister or a few cousins would pass through the feast room, giggling like stupid balloon birds. Jey-im’s father missed the main course, delayed by some nebulous mishap in his nebulous government office. When he finally made his grand entrance, he screamed about damned idiots and feeble subclans and the tainted fat that had found its way onto his platter. The guest was barely noticed, which, Po-lee-een discovered, was exactly what she wanted. The truth told, this family was boring and bleak, and she couldn’t understand how Jey-im, or anyone, could remain happy under these roofs.
In their quiet, polite fashion, Po-lee-een’s family asked about the boy. She answered with a diplomat’s care. Mama-ma suggested sharing a meal, but her daughter had ready excuses. Jey-im was falling behind in school and needed to study; he was ill with a fungus infection, then bloody diarrhea; and finally, he was grounded for a wide array of crimes that, she assured, had nothing to do with her.
The image of Jey-im sitting at their feast table, knowing what he knew and guessing who knew what, made the girl take pause.
Only one family member saw past the subterfuge, and that was her favorite cousin. But that was Trinidad’s talent. Without effort, he could reach inside any person and pull out every one of her terrible secrets.
She was walking to school with her cousin, and he gave her a sudden and very peculiar look. Then with a too-loud voice, he said, “You know what they’re calling you? ‘The golden couple.’”
“Is that so?”
“Everyone’s asking, ‘How does that common-born girl coax a high-born boy into her manacles?’”
Po-lee-een wasn’t common-born, and Jey-im’s family wasn’t that important. But the words had their intended effect. “Is that what they are asking? Or is it you, cousin?”
“They ask,” he assured. “Me? I already know exactly what you’ve told him.”
She stopped in midstride, hugging her computer for a terrible, endless moment. “You don’t know anything,” she managed.
“Don’t I?”
Bright black eyes sliced through the girl. She was simple, and transparent, and now her cousin was going to warn their family that she was a fool.
“Hardly,” he replied, reading her thoughts. “I won’t say a word.”
“No?”
Laughter bled into a thin reassurance. “Po-lee-een,” he purred, “you’re a lot of things, but you’re not an idiot.”
“Thank you.”
“But your Jey-im’s the idiot,” he warned, with hearty conviction. “And I don’t think he really appreciates you, cousin.” She bristled, but said nothing.
“I won’t tell,” Trinidad promised, again. “Why would I want to spoil such a marvelous game?”
His advice about Jey-im was unwelcome, and it was accurate.
Po-lee-een began to notice the older girls flirting with her soulmate. But since jealousy was for the weak, she showed none. And since she refused to believe that anyone could get between them, she couldn’t stop trusting the boy.
Before the night’s final session, she arrived early at school, eager to check the sensors that they’d glued to three terrors. Pushing through the withered blossoms of the red trees, she heard a soft voice, then a foot being dragged through grass. Jey-im was sitting in the open, motionless. A girl was sitting beside him. They were doing nothing. They weren’t even touching each other. But their heads were tilted back, eyes gazing at a private sky…and in that instant, Po-lee-een discovered a scalding jealousy with a temper to match.
She was shouting suddenly, startling everyone. Even herself.
“How about if I throw your fucking face into a terror’s nest?” she told the girl. “How would you like that? How, how?”
The girl leaped to her feet, then fled.
But Jey-im held his ground, defending himself and the innocent girl, then blaming, of all people, Po-lee-een.
“I’m sick of your crazy stories!” he cried out. “Pretending to be so different, so special! This shit about worlds touching worlds…it’s not true! And I’m not even going to pretend to believe you anymore!”
The girl was wounded, but she wouldn’t retreat.
With a tight little voice, she said, “I’m telling the truth.” Then after a deep breath, she added, “And I can prove it. Now.”
Jey-im whistled, in doubt.
But there was curiosity left in him, and probably a nugget of guilt. Reluctantly, he agreed to give her another chance.
They slipped out of school while most of the students were filing inside, and she left the boy waiting at a nearby crossroads. Alone, Po-lee-een sprinted home. In a subbasement near the family’s nest, inside an unlocked compartment watched over by Few-made devices, was a large, scrupulously ordinary tool belt. She had watched her Uncle Ka-ceen deactivate the safeguards, and she did the same things, then removed an old titanium club, a slightly bent staple, and an anonymous scrap of wood. Placing all three in a carrying pouch, she walked past the kitchen door, through a cloud of luscious smells, hesitating only when she heard her father’s quiet voice, then pressing on, ignoring every instinct.
Jey-im was impatient and worried about his exams. In agony, he muttered, “That’s a club! What do we want with a club?”
“I’m going to beat stubborn things with it,” she warned. “Come with me!”
They rode the monoline south. Sprawling family compounds gave way to smaller compounds shouldered in beside one another. They disembarked at a nondescript crossroads, then walked into a narrow, nameless alley, the girl leading while the boy held back, whimpering, “What are we doing, Po-lee-een?”
The alley opened into a small, weedy courtyard. One corner of the courtyard was paved with eroded black glass. Decades ago, just before God-Stole-Our-Sky, this disk and others like it had appeared during the day. Every city-state had a few of them. The disks were minor mysteries until the stars vanished, then they were forgotten mysteries. Offering an abbreviated history, Po-lee-een knelt, arranging the wood and staple and club around the disk’s center, speaking in a low quick voice, an electric surge passing through her arms, warning her that she had finished.
Jey-im watched her, not the sky.
Rising, she explained, “This disk marks an intrusion. The intrusion is tinier than an electron, and it leads to another world. A world that’s safe for us.”
Skeptical to the end, he asked, “How does it feel, being insane?”
She stared at Jey-im, for an instant or an age, waiting to see that imprecise quality that her uncle had seen in Aunt Me-meel. In his genes and in his soul were supposed to be the harbingers of talent; yet despite a tenacious hopefulness, all she could find was a rigid, almost granitic indifference.
A chill clarity struck her suddenly.
She turned, ready to kick the three devices out of alignment. But Jey-im had grown tired of watching the madwoman; lifting his eyes, he discovered to his utter astonishment that the sky was strewn with tiny but brilliant starlike lights.
They were beacons.
Each beacon marked an intrusion used by the Few. The
y were visible only to the two children, and only while they stood on the disk. But for them, the cumulative light of thousands of intrusions nearly washed away the storm-wracked face of Jarrtee.
Too late, Po-lee-een realized just how horrible things were.
In a low, horrified voice, the boy chanted:
“She is. Alien. She is.”
No. She was born here, born jarrtee, and she felt ready to defend her loyalty to their species and the world. Yet there wasn’t time to speak. With a frantic, almost comical gait, Jey-im began to run, quick legs carrying him through the pale, late-night weeds, arms raised overhead and his eyes cast downward, his shrill little-boy voice calling for his parents, pleading for their blessed strength.
On the earth, night had reached the western sky, leaving the bedroom in deep shadow.
Porsche could just make out her lover’s narrow face, the sharp cheeks and chin softened by night and fatigue. Yet Cornell’s eyes were wide awake, astonishment mixed with a fierce curiosity, and without saying any words, he begged to know what had happened next.
Porsche could pity that lust-sick girl. She couldn’t forgive her for her actions or inactions, yet she easily comprehended the motives. More than two decades stood between them, yet suddenly, as she told the rest of it, she felt the hard, nervous beating of lost hearts.
“I went straight home,” she explained. “My father and every uncle were busy with the dawn feast. I walked up to Father and set the club and staple and wood on the bloody chopping block—between two fish heads, I remember—and I told him. I told everyone. Everything. Fast, and honest.”
Cornell waited for a long moment, then said, “And?”
“You know my father. If anything, he was too calm. Too much in control.” She shook her head, saying, “He didn’t blame me or even act particularly worried, which were awful signs. Perhaps the boy wouldn’t tell anyone, he offered. And chances were that he wouldn’t be believed. And besides, there were some tricks that the Few kept for emergencies—”
“Such as?”
“Memories,” she said. “They’re electrochemical signals. By definition, they’re temporary possessions. Extremely perishable.”
“You could erase what had happened?”
“Possibly.” She shifted under the covers, suddenly uncomfortable. “Uncle Ka-ceen was the angry one. He started chopping the heads off every fish in the kitchen, screaming at me. He was a high-ranking citizen in the Few. An important man in Jarrtee’s security network. ‘Wait in your cubicle,’ he told me. ‘Wait and think about every stupid thing that you’ve done.’ Which I did. And after a geologic age, he and Father came to tell me what they had learned. Father did the talking. Uncle Ka-ceen just seethed. And that’s when I finally realized that everything had changed, suddenly and for always.”
For a long moment, silence.
Then she continued, saying, “Remember when we visited the Master’s School and Jey-im vanished? Well, I learned that he’d slipped away to find a certain scientist—a physicist, basically—and he asked the poor man some pointed questions about quantum intrusions. The scientist told him that such things were impossible, then asked where he had heard that nonsense. But Jey-im just ran, thankfully. And the scientist had done his duty and filled out a report with the security office. And Uncle Ka-ceen found the report inside an important someone’s active file.
“‘That set off the first alarm,’ my uncle interjected.
“‘Not the first alarm,’ said Father, defending me but only to a point. ‘Several things have happened lately. Others have been careless, too. Taken alone, none of these incidents matter. Together, we aren’t sure.’
“‘Your boyfriend is talking,’ Uncle Ka-ceen snarled. ‘My eavesdroppers found him chattering like a mud fish. To his mother, his father. And now, high officials.’
“‘But for the moment,’ said Father, ‘no one seems to have decided what to do.’”
Cornell was watching Porsche, picturing the alien scene with its frothy, nearly human tensions.
“On the other hand,” she admitted, “we’d already made our decision.”
“To escape,” he whispered.
“We held a family meeting disguised as a dawn feast. Everyone sat at the marble table, for the last time. No food. We didn’t dare estivate. And with an electronic smoke screen in place, my father rose and spoke.” She hesitated, for an instant. “He sounded calm, but his eyes weren’t. He tried not to blame anyone, but he was the one talking because one of his children had done something unthinkable. I sat very still, wishing that I could repair the damage. I kept imagining myself doing brave, outrageous deeds that would make everything right. But the damage just kept getting bigger, and worse.”
“What do you mean?”
“Since they’d come to my cubicle, the jarrtees had made certain decisions. Separate security bureaus were investigating our family history. The military had a squad watching the disk that I’d shown Jey-im. And an assortment of robots and tiny microphones were studying our home, confidently telling their masters that we were happily eating fat and blood stews, nothing out of the ordinary.”
“I wouldn’t believe the boy,” Cornell admitted. “A crazy story like that—”
“Think like a jarrtee,” was Porsche’s advice. “You estivate through the long day, and you’re utterly helpless. You have a long bloody history, but your enemies have always been jarrtee. They’ve always fought by your rules. Then you suddenly learn that in your ranks, perhaps next door, are creatures that look and smell and sound exactly like you. But they aren’t you, and they live secret lives, and who knows what kinds of powers they wield?”
Cornell said nothing.
“After reporting the latest news,” said Porsche, “my father took his seat. And my oldest living grandparent rose and turned, looking at each of us in turn. She looked at me last. Then she told us, ‘At first light, we will embark. Arrangements are being made now.’ The smallest children didn’t understand, and everyone was a little scared, or a lot scared. My little brother gazed up at me, and with a serious expression, asked if he should pack his toys.
“Grandmama said, ‘No.’ She said, ‘Where we are going, we can only take ourselves. Which is enough. Your toys and your clothes will have to care for themselves.’”
Cornell found Porsche’s hand beneath the covers, squeezing hard.
“The Few have an expression,” she mentioned, realizing finally that for a little while now she had been crying. “Grandmama used the expression then.”
“What is it?”
She pushed her tears with her free hand, saying, “‘Misfortune always finds you, and it brings nothing but promise.’”
5
Bless his ape heart, Cornell tried to say the right words.
Speaking from a rich vein of experience, he reminded her that children make mistakes. These things happened long ago, and she’d acted out of love, and besides, he added, what was the result? Cornell had spent time with her parents and two brothers; they were the healthiest, happiest family he’d ever met. Porsche had obviously thrived in her new environment. And to bring up the obvious: Cornell never would have met her, much less earned his way into her bed, if that earlier suitor hadn’t made the biggest blunder in his otherwise trivial life.
Porsche let the compliments and encouragements wash over her. Then the words stopped, and he kissed her forehead, her strong chin, and the humid terrain farther south. Indulging herself, she lay on her back, breathing a little fast and very hard, concentrating on her pleasure until she was close, then pulling him up over her and into her and burying her face into a pillow, suffocating the sobs.
Moments later, Cornell climaxed, and after a flurry of grateful grunts, he collapsed.
“Better?” he muttered.
“Diverted,” she allowed.
“Good.”
She lay motionless for a moment, feeling perfectly alert. Then she chimed out, “Back soon,” and slipped out of bed, dressing quickly, the f
loor creaking and her slick sweats chirping as she moved into the pitch-black hallway, latching the bedroom door behind her.
Memory took her to the bathroom. While the ancient toilet did its lazy flush, she turned on the light and stood before the solitary mirror. Brushing out her long butterscotch hair while watching her human face, she recalled the precise moment when she first saw those nut-brown human eyes, and where she was, and the extraordinary circumstances.
Cornell would be asleep by now, she assumed.
She slipped back into the room, then into bed, trying not to rouse him. He was on his stomach, his face hidden. And lying on her back, watching the feeble glow of the poster’s stars, Porsche remembered the first moment that she ever set eyes on him.
Porsche had been employed by the Cosmic Event Agency. Her case officer—a bulldog of a woman named Smith—showed off the file on a prospective employee. Even by the agency’s standards, Cornell Novak had a peculiar background. There was no mother in the picture; the father was an exotic creature whom he hadn’t seen in years; and Cornell himself had no lasting relationships, or long-term jobs, or ties of any kind.
The agency’s elaborate, inadequate tests showed that Cornell was a natural talent. Not as gifted as Porsche, Ms. Smith conceded. But nearly so.
Eager to give their new recruit every benefit, her employers urged Porsche to introduce herself. “Encourage the boy,” said the bulldog woman. “Help him see the noble good we’re trying to do here.”
Encouragement meant dinner.
The agency maintained a motel-like facility for its brave explorers, complete with a restaurant. Porsche arranged to meet Cornell in the lobby, and the truth told, she didn’t have grand expectations. But with her first glance, she found herself remembering Aunt Me-meel and her wild claim that people with talent would somehow recognize talent in others.
